


Through Distance and Separation (The World Keeps Turning)

by cooleofooleo



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Kissing, Swearing, but right now it's, i don't wanna spoil what actual au this is yet, i drop the f bomb a few times in this but it's Rated T babey that's what you signed up for!!, ill add more tags as this keeps going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooleofooleo/pseuds/cooleofooleo
Summary: Luz is stuck in the human world. Though things have changed for her, nothing has changed as much as when she lived in the Boiling Isles. She used to be the most powerful witch on the Isles and now she's a high school graduate waiting for college to start in the fall. Her life is painfully mundane. She can barely deal with it. She wishes she could see her friends, her mentor, and even annoying Hooty again. She especially misses Amity and regrets never confessing her feelings to the witch before she had to leave to the human world.She might just get her chance, though.
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 14
Kudos: 68





	Through Distance and Separation (The World Keeps Turning)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! I translated the spanish at the end notes of the chapter so you don't have to do it. :~) Enjoy!

A breeze teased through Luz’s hair as she gazed at the Boiling Isles’ purple ocean. The air was warm and bearably humid, like a blanket wrapped snugly around her. Though Luz doesn’t ever recall being cold in the first place. She let out a sigh of content as she watched the sun set in the horizon. It was a nice day to sit on the owl house’s cliff and relax for a moment.

She fished through her pockets and found one lone light glyph. Aha! So she had thought ahead. But not ahead enough to consider that she would need more than one for her companion. They will have to make due.

Luz turned to Amity, who was enjoying the sunset while sitting next to Luz. She was leaning back on her palms, and her eyes closed as she took in the warmth from the breeze. Luz loved seeing Amity like this. The Emperor was defeated years ago. They had no worries or fears anymore. Just smaller, more personal problems. Those were manageable. As far as Luz was concerned, everything was as perfect as it could be.

“Oye, Amity, mírame.” Luz spoke softly. Amity opened her eyes and glanced over with a small smile.

“¿Sí? ¿Qué es?” Amity shifted herself to face Luz. She felt adoration fill her entire body as she looked at Amity.

She sent a small smile in Amity’s direction before glancing down at the glyph. Her fingers lightly grazed it into activation. The paper crumpled as an orb of light floated up between them. A soft illumination painted their faces as the Isles started to fall into darkness.

“Es como a cuando fuimos a la convención aquelarre. ¿Recuerdas?” Luz asked and started to lean in.

Amity leaned in as well, “Sí. ¿Quién podría olvidar?”

The breath from her words could be felt on Luz’s lips and it made her shiver. Luz swallowed and found herself trying not to smile, “¿Es bueno si te beso?”

Amity’s face turned pink as she giggled, “¿Por qué me preguntas ahora?”

Before Luz could respond, Amity pressed her lips against Luz’s. She felt herself sigh into the kiss. She broke it for a moment to wrap her arms around Amity’s body and pull her in so she could kiss her again. And again. And again.

As the kiss deepened, Amity pressed herself against Luz’s body and Luz heard her moan. Luz broke the kiss to give a smartass remark on the noise but Amity chased Luz’s mouth with hers and met them again. Luz was in heaven. This was the best day of her life. She was kissing her crush on a cliff-side at sunset and they were speaking Spanish and it was so romantic and perfect and the best fairy-tale ending to her life. She couldn’t wait for the rest of her life to begin with Amity by her side.

Wait. When did Amity learn Spanish? And where was Hooty? Wouldn’t he have seen all of this? Why wasn’t he making any annoying remarks? And where was-

\---

Luz woke with a sharp inhale. She blinked and she looked around the room. It was…it was her human room. She licked her lips and pressed a hand against her stomach. She could feel the lingering pressure of Amity’s body against her as they had kissed. Her being felt a lonely weightlessness. Her heart ached.

She cursed herself. It was a dream. It wasn’t real. That never happened. None of that ever happened.

She sighed as her soul whined in emotional agony. She had been back in the human world for a little over three years now. For the most part, her year on the Boiling Isles felt like a vivid dream at best. At worst it felt like fading memories.

Luz shut her eyes tightly as she tried to summon the image of Amity from her dream. Her eyebrows furrowed as she realized that even her mind’s eye couldn’t form a clear picture of Amity anymore. Nor of Gus, Willow, Eda, or King. Not even Lilith. Though she wasn’t always Lilith’s biggest fan. Somehow, she could still remember Hooty though. Go figure.

She lazily reached around her nightstand for her phone. She checked the time to see that it was 9:48 A.M. on June 17 th . She had graduated high school about two weeks ago, and she found that lazy summer mornings were becoming a reminder that her former life was slipping away more and more with each passing day. She had this one last summer before she would start at the local community college and she felt like she was wasting it by sleeping in.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and opened Instagram. Luz had made a few friends in high school after she came back from the Boiling Isles. It turns out that there was an anime club at her high school, and it helped her find some like-minded individuals. Plus, it was hard to say no to being friends with the girl who had a missing person poster on the school bulletin board for a year straight.

Except they all had her blocked now. She groaned and messed with her hair. Right. She and her boyfriend broke up last week. And he was friends with all of the anime club members. It was obvious that they made their choice. Luz wasn’t apart of their lives anymore.

She felt tears sting her eyes. She wiped at them angrily. This sucked. This all sucked. He was the one who started it all by disregarding her and her stories about the Boiling Isles. He kept saying that it was all fake and that she needed to get over it. She tried to stop herself from crying but felt a sob punch its way through her throat. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair to her at all.

And now she was friendless again. All over a stupid breakup of a four month relationship. How dumb. Luckily, she was starting college in a few months. She bore with loneliness for the first 14 years of her life. She can bear with it for two and a half more months until she can make some new friends at college.

Or at least that’s what she tried to tell herself.

Luz finished her cry session before rolling herself out of bed. She glanced in the mirror and a rat stared back. Ok, it was just her, but she felt like a rat. Her hair had grown out into a wild and untamed bob and her shoulder was escaping from the strap of her tank-top. Bags had long-since grown under her eyes, and dried drool proudly displayed itself on her chin. Damn, when will Remy the rat come sweep her off her feet?

She heard a voice in her head tell her to stop being self-deprecating, but Luz thought it was allowed considering that she was going through a breakup at the moment. Granted, towards the end of their relationship, she didn’t even like Jack all that much. But she did like his hair, and his jackets were warm, and he listened to her theories about why Naruto ultimately fails as a shounen series but succeeds as a queer romance. Sometimes that’s all a girl wants in life. A guy with good hair and nice jackets and an ear for listening to Naruto analysis.

She wandered downstairs to find that her mom had left for a shift at the hospital. Truly, she didn’t have to work anymore because of the extremely large settlement between their family and Reality Check for losing her for over a year. But her mom had put most of the money into a trust account for Luz to access when she was 35. That was a long way to wait. She told her mom that she’d rather it go to them right now but her mother was stubborn on letting Luz keep the money that didn’t go into therapy, medications, and other assortments of antidotes for her leftover Boiling Isles trauma.

When Luz had returned, she tried to explain the Boiling Isles to her mom but was left with pity and hugs and a lot of tears. So she didn’t really talk about the Boiling Isles in the house anymore. Luz deduced that her mother could handle her daughter being weird and oddly creative, but not so crazy that she believed that a magic realm existed.

Well, it did. But Luz wasn’t arguing that point to anyone anymore. All it did was get her intensive therapy, welbutrin, a messy breakup, and an extremely concerned mother. She resigned herself to just writing about her adventures. That’s why she was going to college. She was going to learn how to be a writer so she could record all of her adventures down and sell a fantasy novel based on them. Then at least people will acknowledge her adventures. … Even if they didn’t truly believe that they happened.

Luz heated up some leftover tamales and sat outside on the back porch. She took in the sounds of the neighborhood and let herself just exist in her own space while she slowly ate. She then went and got coffee and allowed a few more moments to sip and think some more. After her coffee, she allowed a couple extra moments to think about her dream and reminisce about her time on the Boiling Isles. She allowed herself so many moments that it was suddenly 11:58 A.M. and Luz realized she had gotten nothing done for half a day again.

She forced herself away from the porch and got herself dressed. She needed to write. She wanted to prove to her mom that she had the ability to be a famous writer, which is how she convinced her mom to let her use some of the savings to buy herself a slim and new laptop to take to cafes. Never mind that she usually just spent her time looking at twitter and watching YouTube animatics on it. She still used it to write when she had inspiration. Which was rare. But it did happen sometimes!

She pulled on a striped purple and white shirt and jean shorts. She fluffed up her hair for a moment before inserting all six different earrings into her ears and swinging the sling of her shoulder backpack over herself. With a quick wave to the neighbor kid and a lock of the door she was on her way to her favorite writing spot.

The walk to the nearby cafe was about 15 minutes. It just so happened that the entrance to the woods was on the way to it. You know, the woods that had that abandoned house where the portal to the Boiling Isles used to be. Luz ignored her desire to check the abandoned house. She couldn’t. Not again. The disappointment always ruins her day. And sometimes even her week. It had been 5 months since she had last checked the property and she was already too vulnerable from her breakup. She wasn’t putting herself into a worse place. At least not on purpose.

“Not gonna get _me_ today,” Luz muttered to herself as she looked anywhere but the woods. She continued to walk and once she passed the trail through the trees, she felt herself relax. She beat the impulse once again. Her therapist would be proud of her. She used to wander into those woods everyday when she first arrived home. But that made sense back then.

When Luz came back to the human world, it was the most forcible return to any realm in the history of man and witchkind. The portal between the worlds was collapsing. Emperor Belos had been defeated but was smart enough to destroy his newly built portal, along with himself. So Eda, along with Gus, Willow, the Blight siblings, and Lilith, combined their powers to keep it from destroying itself. But not before throwing Luz through it with a levitation spell. She screamed at them as she warped to her world. She flung into the overgrown grass outside of the abandoned house. And when she screamed and cried and banged on the door until it swung open, she only found dust and mice inside.

She had been stuck here since that day.

Luz sighed at the memory and recalled the dream about Amity. Her heart squeezed in response. She knew that she would never see Amity again. Dreaming about her made it feel like her mind only wanted to play cruel jokes on her by reminding her of what she can’t have. She never got to tell Amity how much she felt for the witch. But she never told Amity because she was respecting her crush on someone else.

It wasn’t Luz. She knew that. But she wanted it so badly to be herself. She would lay in bed at night, fantasizing about going on dates and kissing under the grom tree and saving Amity from monsters. She would sit with Amity at school and steal glances when she wasn’t looking. She would do funny voices whenever she read out-loud for the Azura Book Club, just to hear Amity laugh. One time she even got to see Amity with her hair down and her heart nearly stopped then and there.

If she knew that she was going to be tossed into a portal that day, then Luz would’ve told Amity about her feelings before they confronted the Emperor. Other person or not, at least Luz could’ve had some peace of mind with letting Amity know how she felt. Now she’s stuck with unresolved emotions and a lot of longing for someone she hasn’t seen in three years.

Luz shook the thoughts out of her head as she entered the cafe and stepped into line. She needed to stop missing someone who was gone forever. That’s why she went and got a boyfriend. It’s why she’s taken up hobbies and tried to make friends. It’s why she’s focusing on her career as a writer. Sure, this is the second time now that she was forcibly abandoned by every person that said they cared about her, but the third time is the charm, right?

“Hey, you’re back.”

Luz blinked into reality and saw that she was at the front of the line. The barista was smiling at Luz and Luz felt herself smile back. Since Luz had become a regular at the cafe, she had started getting recognized by the cafe workers. Luz remembered most of them and this person was no exception. Her name was Regina, she was about Luz’s age based on the conversations they’ve had, and her hair was dyed in streaks of purple and pink. She always wore an array of buttons for nostalgia purposes. Pikachu was on her apron today.

“Yeah, I was going through some stuff this past week.” Luz admitted. She looked away before seeing Regina tap away at the register.

Regina’s eyes met Luz’s and she frowned, “Is it all worked out? Also, you want your usual, right?”

“Yeah, I want the usual. And not really…” Luz pulled out a credit card as she watched Regina write down her memorized order on a cup, “My boyfriend broke up with me.”

“Bastard.” Regina said with a huff, “Men can be the worst. They’ll treat you like shit and then wonder why you’re upset.” She took Luz’s card and aggressively swiped it, “He lost out on a great person. That’s for sure. What a stupid decision.”

Luz took the card back. She felt a stir inside of her as an image of Amity flashed forward. She didn’t understand why that happened. “I guess so.”

“I know so.” Regina moseyed over to the machines and started Luz’s double mocha espresso. “You’re always in here working on your story. You have to have some sort of creative mind for it.”

 _Not as much creativity as it is a retelling._ Luz bit back the thought. She nodded. “He said that I’m too focused on…that world.”

“What an idiot. What’s a writer supposed to do!?” Regina threw her hands in the air as the shots poured into the cup. “You wouldn’t be able to write an authentic world if you didn’t at least partially live in it!”

Luz felt her heart swell over Regina defending her. She also was at a loss for words. She wasn’t used to someone defending her fixation on the Boiling Isles. But she did bend the story to place Regina on her side, which she felt a little bad about. Luz struggled with a response as she tackled her thoughts but, fortunately, Regina had plenty of thoughts to spare about the creative process and a writer’s curse and many other terms that Regina probably stole from a social media post on the agony of the written word.

It amused Luz enough to feel a little comfort over what had happened the past week. At least until Regina slammed the cup down onto the bar, “And that’s that! You need to go write and make the best book ever and show that dipshit why leaving you was his greatest mistake!”

Luz felt a bubble of laughter leave her. These people don’t even realize how amazing she was in the Boiling Isles. She took down an all-powerful witch by herself! With her own unique set of magic skills and hand made glyphs! And this person believes that greatness comes from being a good writer, and that succeeding at writing was the best way to get back at her ex-boyfriend. She couldn’t imagine having this conversation with her 15 year old self, the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles.

She wasn’t that witch anymore. She was a writer. Or at least trying to be. So maybe Regina is right. Maybe being a famous writer in this world is the best way to get back at Jack and all of her other snake friends who left her.

And it’s not like she can use a fire spell or a game of grugby to convince them otherwise.

Luz took the cup and said, “I doubt he’ll have that come to Jesus moment”

“His loss. Anyone would be lucky to have you.” Regina huffed again before returning to work.

Luz’s mind flashed to Amity again. She immediately pushed those thoughts away.

\---

Unsurprisingly, Luz spent the afternoon nursing her mocha and scrolling through twitter drama. She really had to get a handle on how to just sit down and write her story. But that was why she was going to college, wasn’t she? So she could learn just how to do that? Or at least, that was the hope.

After a couple of hours, she decided it would be best to go home and eat dinner instead of snacking on a reheated panini. She packed up and waved goodbye to Regina before heading out into the world.

Luz mulled over her thoughts from when Regina was going off about Jack. Maybe a part of her problem now was because she was extraordinary on the Boiling Isles and extremely ordinary in this world. When she was 15, she always thought that she would remain there permanently while visiting home occasionally. Instead, she was forced to return to her normal, magic-less life. Perhaps she needed to find something more exciting to do, instead of simply writing, to keep herself invested in her mundane lifestyle.

She won that writing competition as King’s ghostwriter so many years ago. She thought that was her writer’s call-to-action when it happened. But then the world kept spinning and she needed to lead a revolution. And as suddenly as a strike of lightening, she was in a final battle with the most powerful wild magic user on the Isles. Then she won against him. Spectacularly, actually.

And her prize was being thrown through a portal that closed on her.

Luz focused her thoughts to the sidewalk. Maybe she needed to switch her focus to a more exciting career instead of devoting all of this time on reminiscing about her adventures. She was already devoted to social justice through social media, so maybe something like that? Though there was a high chance of burnout with regards to that career, so maybe she shouldn’t do that. She was big on fighting crime, but she definitely did not want to be a cop. She could almost hear Eda loudly hissing at the mere idea of a her wearing a badge. Maybe she should do something that you don’t need to go to school for? Like a cave spelunker or a lion tamer.

Luz found herself at the entrance to the woods. She snapped out of her thoughts and slowly gazed down the shaded path. In there was the abandoned house. In there was the Boiling Isles. In there was _home_.

Except it didn’t exist anymore.

But maybe it would give her some inspiration on what to do with her life. Or maybe a stray board will fall from the ceiling and put her into a two and a half month coma. She could wake up without having to wrestle with her emotions before college started.

She pivoted on her heel and started down the trail.

The stroll wasn’t terribly long but it definitely hasn’t been tended to for quite some time. Ever since Luz was found near the house, crying and screaming like it was her last moment alive, it became a neighborhood taboo to go near it. It was probably because Luz kept finding her way back to it. Crying and screaming, again, and again. It was as if the ghost of her former self was dedicated to haunting the property, except she wasn’t a ghost. Just Luz. After about a year of loudly sobbing on the porch, she opted for quietly crying to herself at the broken steps. That was the most progress she had made in the past three years. Maybe she won’t cry this time. Maybe.

The house came into view and it looked worse than it did five months ago. A whole window had been shattered out and broken glass was all over the porch, additional termite-eaten boards had fallen from the ceiling, and thickets of weeds had sprouted around the foundation.

Luz felt the tears well up as she looked at it. It was so fucking ugly.

But it was a symbol of the divide between worlds. It was the place where her life had changed all those years ago. Whether she liked it or not… this house was technically her home.

She didn’t want to sit at the steps and cry. Broken glass in her butt wouldn’t be a good addition to her growing list of problems. Instead, she sat down in the overgrown yard and cried into her hands. She missed the Boiling Isles so much. She missed her friends. She missed Eda. She missed King and Lilith and even Hooty. And she missed Amity.

She felt pain sting her throat and she coughed it out, spraying tears all over the grass in front of her. Titan, she was such a mess right now. Good thing no one came around here anymore. Why did she even come here? She was going through a breakup. She was vulnerable. Why did she make such a stupid choice like this? She was going to feel like shit all day now.

“Well, that was another day wasted here.”

Luz froze at the sound of a voice. It was deep and male and it made her heart stop. Someone was coming. She could hear footsteps echoing through the trees. She quickly wiped at her face and stumbled to her feet.

“Whatever happened to the little kid who loved everything and anything that this world has to offer?” A woman’s voice asked the male voice.

Luz looked around. She had to hide. No one should know that she’s here. She didn’t want prozac or valium forced onto her because she was found here again. She started to jog in place out of anxiety. She decided on running around the side of the house and hiding out until they went away.

“That was before this world took my best friend!” The male voice answered back, “Besides, I’m a _man_ now. I have more realistic expectations.”

Laughter from the woman’s voice, “You’re 16! You’re not a man! Just because you graduated, doesn’t mean you’re an adult now.”

“Hey! Who has the deep voice here!? Not you! I think I’m the authority on manhood now.”

“I thought you were the authority on humans.”

Luz felt her heart jump into her throat. Why were they talking about humans like that? Oh wait. They might just be talking about anthropology. They were probably just a couple of bored students who wandered out to the creepy abandoned house where the lost 15 year old was found. That seemed reasonable. They definitely weren’t talking about humans like witches talked about humans.

“I think my title is in peril seeing as we can’t find one person.”

“Pick your head up, king, your crown is falling.”

Luz tried to stifle a laugh as the male laughed back at the woman. These two seemed hilarious. She momentarily wondered if she could be friends with them before realizing that it would be weird for her to approach them at the creepy abandoned house.

“Wait.” The woman paused, “Did you hear something?”

Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit.

“Like what?” The male asked.

“Was that a laugh?”

Luz immediately started to look around frantically for another place to hide. She really didn’t need to be found out this way. Especially, if she was going to befriend these people sometime soon. Which was unlikely since she was currently panicking after listening in on their private conversation.

“Hey, who is that?” The male voice asked directly behind Luz.

Luz screamed and jumped into reality, as well as three feet into the air, and fell to the ground.

She scrambled in the weeds to turn around to face them as they both started to frantically apologize and offer to help Luz up. It was when Luz finally got a look at the two that her whole world paused.

Staring at Luz was Gus and Willow. And staring at Gus and Willow was Luz.

A pause rippled through the three. Their faces contorted as they were each trying to verify each other’s identity based on memory. Eyebrows were furrowing. Eyelids were scrunching. Gears were turning. Neurons were firing. You get the picture.

Luz finally broke the silence and cautiously said, “…Gus? Willow?”

It was Willow who answered back, “Luz? Is that you?”

Luz couldn’t believe it. She felt a rush of joy that she hadn’t felt in years. She felt her face break into a smile. And then, she sobbed. Loudly. She put her face into her hands and weeped openly. Her voice was shaky as she said, “Y-yes, it’s me! It’s Luz! Luz Noceda!” She looked back up at them through her tears, “I thought I would never see you guys again!”

Suddenly, Gus and Willow fell to their knees and embraced Luz in a group hug. It was warm and loving and filled with confessions of missing Luz for all of these years. Luz hugged them back tightly, and realized that they were sobbing into her. They were all hugging and crying and affirming to each other that yes, they did miss each other and had waited so long to see each other again and that this definitely ranks in the top three best days of their lives.

Luz realized that she was loved, and wanted, and missed dearly by someone that wasn’t her mom. Two someones, in fact.

It was then that Luz realized how much she had spent her time grieving her former life.

And it was then that Luz realized that she didn’t have to grieve it anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> The conversation they had in Spanish at the beginning of the chapter: 
> 
> "Hey, Amity, look at me."
> 
> "Yes? What is it?"
> 
> "This is like when we went to the covention. Remember?"
> 
> "Yea. Who could forget?"
> 
> "Is it ok if I kiss you?"
> 
> "Why are you asking me now?"
> 
> \---
> 
> Well that's chapter one of my fic! I think this will be about 10 chapters but I don't want to get too cocky. There's a secret AU prong in here that will come forward in a few chapters and I'll update the tags appropriately for that. No idea how long it'll take me to do another chapter. There's no schedule only writing, babes!!
> 
> Thank you for reading!! See you soon!!


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